No Signs of Weakness
by Emmy-loo
Summary: Alex finds himself captive on Christmas. It may turn out to be his worst Christmas ever. A prequel of sorts to Reeducation. Now a three-shot. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.  


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No Signs of Weakness

_Happy bloody Christmas to me_, he thought darkly, licking his dry lips. They were cracked and bloody at this point. He hadn't had water in over a day, and the air was desert dry.

It made sense, considering he was in a desert.

There was a piece of hair that kept falling into his eye. No matter how many times he shook his head, it always fell right back to where it had left. He would have flattened it to his head had his arms not been chained to the wall. But, as things were, he had to tolerate the dark and dirty strand of hair tickling his eye every few minutes. It wasn't going well. With nothing else to focus on, it was almost driving him crazy.

Giving up, he glanced around his cell, though he'd memorized its layout ten times over in the past week. A rusty chair over in the corner, his own blood staining the legs. What he thought might be a human skeleton over to his left. A rat hole in the opposite wall. There was a window high up to his left, but it wasn't big enough for him to squeeze through. He would know. He had tried on his first night, wasting the last piece of Smithers' exploding gum. His only reward had been a new set of chains and water deprivation.

The walls themselves were colored with dust and blood. There was a stain that looked suspiciously like the Mona Lisa on the wall opposite him. The floor was sandy. Nothing too exciting there.

He licked his lips again and glanced toward the door, wondering when they would be back with his water. They didn't seem to be on a schedule, so he could go just a few hours without water, or almost two days, his current record. He suspected it was just another one of their torture methods, so he refused to give them any satisfaction and gulp at it when it did come. He drank it slowly, making sure not to let any spill.

The door opened. _Speak of the devil and he shall appear_, Alex thought grimly. His muscles had clenched involuntarily and he made them loosen—_no signs of weakness_, he reminded himself. Still, he had to clench his jaw to avoid saying anything stupid.

"It's seems that Mr. Rider has learned his lesson," the man all but purred to his imaginary audience. "No sardonic comments, Mr. Rider? I may just break you yet."

Alex bit his tongue so he could reply calmly. A visit from the head honcho. Interesting. He wondered what was going on in the outside world—if their plan was proceeding well. "You wish, Volta."

"That is among my dearest wishes, yes," the man conceded with a slight nod. "You have turned out to be such a fascinating little spy. I suspect I will be disappointed when you die."

Alex didn't respond. Volta and his men took every opportunity to torture him—speaking 'out of turn' had led to painful nights more than once.

Volta turned on his heel and for the slightest second Alex dared to hope that he might be leaving. But no. He dragged the chair, the metal legs scraping against the ground, until it was a few feet in front of where Alex sat. He took a seat and put his elbows on his knees, examining Alex intently. Alex stared right back, though the man's piercing green eyes were more than a little bit unnerving.

"It's Christmas," he said, suddenly, startling Alex.

"Whoop-de-doo," Alex muttered under his breath. "That's great," he said, more loudly. "Did you get me anything?"

Volta didn't laugh. "What would you be doing now?" he asked Alex, still not taking his eyes off of him. "If you were still in London?"

Alex clenched his jaw shut tighter. Volta wasn't in here to chat, he saw now. He was trying to break him, but psychologically this time. Alex allowed himself a small smile to himself when he realized that. That meant that they thought the physical methods weren't working.

"Will I have to…force the answers out of you, Mr. Rider?" he asked, when Alex didn't answer. "We both know I will not hesitate to do so." As if to prove his point, he pulled a coiled whip out from behind him. Alex stiffened involuntarily. His back was already raw with whip marks.

"I see you recognize my old friend," Volta purred, stroking the leather whip. "I told my associates to use it well. I'm glad they followed my advice."

There was a pause. The scabbing wounds on Alex's back seemed to throb in earnest, though he'd been ignoring them pretty successfully for a few days now. He tried to take a deep breath discreetly, but he knew Volta would see it—and recognize it—anyway. _No signs of weakness_.

"Now, Mr. Rider," he said, looking at Alex. "This will not be necessary if you just tell me some simple information. No one will die based on what you tell us. I simply want to know how you would be spending your holiday."

Alex glared, but opened his mouth. There was no harm in talking about Christmas. He already knew they couldn't get to Jack—she was in protective custody right about now.

"Jack and I eat take away Chinese food on Christmas Eve," he said, finally. His voice seemed gravelly. It was probably from all of the screaming he had been doing. "Since they're the only places open. I'm allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve—that's Jack's tradition. I usually pick the one present that has socks in it. She laughs at me, and we drink cocoa. Then I go to bed. She wakes me up early—usually before eight—on Christmas morning and we eat cinnamon rolls as we open presents. Then we laze around for the rest of the day." He stopped, out of breath. His throat hurt. "Good enough?"

"Certainly," Volta said, though he was still fingering the whip. "You care for this Jack very much, don't you?"

Alex felt his insides growing cold. "What did you do?" he asked, dread filling every part of him. Not Jack. It couldn't be Jack.

He laughed—the bastard _laughed_. "Oh, nothing yet. We thought we would have you watch."

Alex was suddenly standing, pulling at the chains with all of his might. He kicked wildly, but Volta had placed himself strategically out of Alex's reach. He didn't even get up, but remained calmly seated, still watching Alex.

Alex tugged at the chains until he thought his arms would fall out of his sockets. His wrists were raw where the cuffs dug into them, and his blood leaked warmly down his arms. But once his rational mind had control again, he made the frenzied beating of his heart slow. _No signs of weakness_, he reminded himself. _No signs of weakness_.

A moment after he stopped trying to beat Volta into the next century without the use of his hands or feet, two men came into the room, wheeling a television. Alex's vision seemed to go blurry at the edges—Volta wasn't kidding. They were going to make him watch Jack die.

One of the men pressed a button on the front of the television and the screen flickered to life. Alex's heart seemed to stop. That was Jack, no doubt about it. She was sitting in the middle of a dark room, tied to a chair. Her bright red hair was scarlet with blood that was leaking down onto her face. But her head was held high, in typical Jack fashion. She was wearing a jumper with a reindeer on it.

"Jack!" he yelled, though in all likelihoods she couldn't hear him. "Jack!"

"I will spare her life if you tell me where the detonator is," Volta said softly, watching one of his men circle Jack predatorily.

Alex could have cried—could have, but didn't. _No signs of weakness_. "How many times do I have to tell you?!" he exclaimed, tugging at his chains again as if being closer to the television would help him. "_I_ _don't know where the detonator is!_"

Volta shrugged and looked at him. "I don't believe you," he said, after a moment of looking into Alex's eyes.

He lifted a radio to his mouth—Alex didn't know how he'd missed it before, the thing was huge—and said only two words.

"Shoot her."

Alex's heart faltered. Nothing happened on the television—maybe they were just bluffing, that wasn't Jack, they weren't going to kill her, they just wanted to scare him...

A shot rang out. There was no sound, but Alex heard it as if the gun had been right next to his ear. He saw the red blossoming on her chest, but didn't want to believe. She looked down at it for a moment before looking up into the camera. Her mouth moved slightly, but Alex couldn't make it out from where he was.

And then she died.

Alex screamed, unable to control it. _No signs of weakness_, he thought, but it was no use. He didn't even notice when one of the men who had wheeled the television in punched him in the face until he hit the ground, his nose bleeding profusely. His head was spinning.

He saw Volta walk up to him and crouch. He wished his hands were free. He would kill this man, damn the consequences.

"Happy Christmas, Mr. Rider."


	2. Chapter 2

I wasn't originally going to continue this, but you guys convinced me. Thank you for all of the lovely reviews! By the way, this chapter turned out _much_ longer than I expected. I hope you like it! (A minor author's disclaimer: I know nothing about guns, so if anything I say about them is wrong; feel free to let me know!) And for real this time, Merry/Happy Christmas/Holidays! (Wow that's a bit of a mouthful!)

Bit of a strong language warning, too.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.**

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"I hate this bloody country," Snake heard Eagle mutter, not for the first time. He rolled his eyes, but refrained from groaning. It didn't help. Besides, thinking about Eagle's complaints only made him remember his own more vividly.

Wolf, however, was not so generous. "Shut your mouth, Eagle," he snarled. "We _know_ you hate this bloody country. You've only said it thirteen times."

On Snake's left, Bull snorted, but said nothing. He didn't say much.

"Well I do!" Eagle exclaimed defensively. "It's bloody hot!"

Snake spoke up. "Yes, Eagle. We're in Afghanistan. It's a desert. It is _going_ to be hot. But, for the third time, complaining about it does you no good."

Eagle pouted. "It makes me feel better," he claimed. "Besides, what else are we supposed to talk about? You three are boring—you never want to talk about _anything_, which leaves me to complain about the weather!"

Snake opened his mouth, but Wolf beat him to it. "Why don't we talk about what we're supposed to be doing? I know even _you_ can't have forgotten already, Eagle."

"'Course I haven't!" Eagle exclaimed, standing up straighter in indignation. "But it isn't exactly an interesting assignment. All we've got to do is check buildings for any possible traps."

"That's right," Wolf said, as if speaking to a small child. "And why are we doing this?"

Eagle rolled his eyes. Snake grinned a little bit. Eagle may have been immature, but he wasn't stupid. He knew Wolf was poking fun at him.

"Because the Prime Minister is coming through tomorrow, and it wouldn't do to have any buildings explode on him," Eagle said in his best schoolboy voice. "So we're checking for anything suspicious."

"Gold star for the lad!" Bull exclaimed, patting him on the back as they ducked through yet another entryway.

Eagle shrugged it off. "I prefer red," he said with a straight face. It wasn't long before all four of them were laughing. This whole situation was ludicrous. Here they were, in Afghanistan for the fourth time in the past year, making jokes about Eagle's intelligence.

Snake rolled his shoulders and put his ear to the next door. "Hello?" he called. He knew that whoever was inside—if anyone was inside—wouldn't understand him, but he was sure things like this had happened often enough that they got the general idea. As long as they kept their faces friendly enough, they hadn't run into any problems. The Afghans had been extremely accommodating.

There was no answer. Snake frowned. The door was in very good condition—it didn't look like the other abandoned sites they had found. Something about this told him this wasn't right. Quietly he motioned to Bull, who nudged Wolf and grabbed Eagle's shoulder. Snake got the feeling—a weird sense of intuition—that this door was very important.

With the three others behind him, Snake quietly pulled out his semi-automatic and held it carefully in his arms. He then grabbed the door handle and cracked it open. His initial suspicions were proven correct—this was no abandoned home. The door made no noise as he moved it.

Cautiously, he peered into the room. When all he saw was darkness, he opened the door a bit more and motioned his teammates in. They filed in after him, their boots making the only sound on the dusty floor. Snake's heart was beating quickly, adrenaline pumping into his system. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the darkness and scanned the room.

It wasn't particularly large. There was a table off on the opposite side of the room with a handful of papers on it that they would have to check out once they secured the rest of the house, but other than that it was fairly bare. There was no ornamentation that he could see.

A moment later he lowered his gun, letting it relax and fall to his side.

That was his fatal mistake.

Men suddenly flooded into the room, coming from nowhere. They were clad in light clothes, good for fighting. Snake groaned inwardly. He had upwards of 100 pounds strapped to his back—he would be useless in hand to hand combat, which was what these men were aiming for. Snake dodged a particularly vicious kick to the knees and barely avoided a knife that came flying out of nowhere. And he couldn't exactly go for his gun—he might shoot a teammate.

Nonetheless, he took aim carefully, ducking and dodging, trying to yell to Wolf. He let off a shot, and he saw one of them go down, but just then he was pulled down from behind.

"Aarg!" he yelled, trying to dislodge his backpack. His head hit the ground, hard, and for a second he saw stars. Then there was a face grinning madly above him, pinning his arms down and going for a knife.

Snake struggled, and managed to break free of his pack. Without warning, he struck the man in the face with his own head, wiping his own face of blood when it dripped onto him. He twisted and freed himself of the man, punching him in the head and knocking him unconscious.

Finally free of his own pursuer, Snake could look up.

It was mayhem.

Wolf was holding his own, backed into a corner and simply shooting those who dared get too close point blank, but he had a knife protruding from his stomach and looked to be bleeding profusely. Damn.

Eagle and Bull had paired up and were standing back to back, using their fists to push offenders away. Both were bleeding. Bull looked close to unconsciousness, but he stayed on his feet.

Snake turned and kicked one attacker in the stomach, making the man crumple. How many of them were there? They seemed to be coming out of nowhere...

A man got him in the kidneys and he doubled over, clutching his stomach. Motherfucker! Snake spun around and knocked the man's legs from underneath him, kicking him in the head for good measure. Breathing heavily he turned to Wolf, who was lowering his gun.

"Bloody fucking hell!" Wold breathed heavily, looking wide-eyed at them. "What the hell was that?"

Snake, taking in deep breaths, just shrugged. "We'll have to radio this in," he said. "The prime minister will have to take another route."

Eagle snorted, and Snake's shoulders relaxed just a little bit more. "What say we check out the rest of this place?" he asked, already peering into the darkened hallways. "They had to come from somewhere, right?"

"Two and two?" Bull suggested, grabbing his pack from where he had dropped it by the door. "Me and Eagle, and you two together?"

Snake glanced at Wolf. It made logistical sense. Brains and brawn on each team. Not to say that he and Eagle weren't strong, or that Wolf and Bull weren't smart, but the pairings definitely made sense. "Works for me," he said, making his way toward his own pack, which had landed underneath the table he had noticed before.

"Sure," Wolf said. "We'll take the downstairs, you take the up?"

"All right then," Eagle said. "Let's get cracking."

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The stairs, like the door, made no noise. Snake refused to let his guard down this time—if there was anything in this house, he suspected they would find it in the basement. He felt his heart start to beat more quickly in anticipation, and leaned around the corner at the bottom of the stairs. He gestured to Wolf and turned the corner quietly, trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. There was nothing down here that he could see. Just a singular metal door, barred from the outside. He raised his eyebrows and leaned his head toward the door.

Wolf followed him until they were right next to the door. It had no windows, because that would've been too useful, but Snake could hear something on the other side. His eyebrows disappeared further up into his hair when he realized it was screaming.

He looked toward Wolf—his eyebrows had come together in what Snake liked to call his "angry face", and he looked determined. Snake grinned despite the situation. Some things never changed—Wolf would always be fiercely protective of the innocent.

Without warning, they lifted the bar and slammed the door open. Even Snake, who had seen things that would make grown men cry, wasn't expecting what he saw.

A boy was chained to the wall, whip marks ingrained deeply in the skin on his back. His face was pressed against the wall and his face was distorted in pain. Blood was not only dripping down his back, but down his face as well where he had bitten through his own lip. His skin was dark and bruised, and he looked unhealthily thin. His black hair was matted with blood and sweat, and barely-healed scabs littered his body.

For a moment, Snake couldn't move. He felt ill and dizzy. This kid couldn't be older than fifteen. What on earth could he have done to deserve this?

And then his eyes fell on the man in the room. Tall and spindly thin, with pale white skin; he looked to Snake like something out of a nightmare. He held a whip in his hands and his face glowed demonically. Something in Snake broke. The bastard was _laughing_.

He and Wolf charged into the room simultaneously, pulling their guns. The man straightened and turned toward them, some of the light fading from his face.

"What is it we have here?" he asked, eyeing them. "Some of your friends, Mr. Rider?"

The kid groaned, and his eyes flickered open. Snake could hardly believe that he was still conscious. He had lost so much blood... But then Snake saw his face. He didn't look Afghani, and Rider was _not_ an Afghani surname.

"Fuck off, Volta. I've already... told you... I don't know a-anything. Don't t-tease...me." His eyes were closed again.

Snake's suspicions were confirmed. This kid was definitely not Afghani. If he wasn't mistaken, he actually spoke with a British accent.

"Volta, huh?" Wolf snarled, stalking closer to the man. "I'd say you're looking at life in prison, Volta, depending on what country they decide to prosecute you in. It could be the death penalty."

The man laughed. Snake had no idea what his plan was—he was outnumbered two to one, and they were armed. Unless he had something up his sleeve there was no way he could win. "I am not afraid of death," he said. "And I know something you don't—I have reinforcements waiting for me."

It was Snake's turn to laugh. "You mean the reinforcements we demolished upstairs?"

Volta didn't seem to notice that they were stalking closer to him. He had a familiar gleam in his eye—the gleam of a madman. This was a man that didn't care what happened to him. The most dangerous kind of man, in Snake's opinion.

"That does not matter to me," he said, holding the whip to his chest. "I will die a martyr."

"I wonder if they'll believe me if I say there was a provoked attack," Wolf mused, circling Volta, his gun ready. "Self-defence and all. Because I would _love_ to kill you myself."

The boy chained to the wall coughed. Snake took the opportunity to move closer to him. He was surprised when the kid spoke. "You can't," he coughed out, lifting his head to Wolf's direction. "Because I'm going to."

Wolf raised his eyebrows. "You sure, kid? You're pretty young to be killing people."

The kid coughed again, but to Snake it almost sounded like a laugh. "Trust me," he said. "No regrets."

Wolf prodded Volta with his gun—the man looked decidedly less intimidating now that Wolf had him backed into a corner with a gun pointed at his chest. "You sure?" he asked.

But the kid didn't have a chance to answer. At that moment Eagle and Bull wandered in. "Hey guys, nothing upstairs. You all good down here?"

They both froze when they saw the boy. "Bloody fucking hell," Eagle breathed. "What the hell's going on down here?"

"Good question," Snake replied. "But one that can be answered as soon as we get his chains off. Can you go look for a set of keys?"

"Better yet," Wolf muttered. He kicked Volta and raised his eyebrow. The man was weak. "On the table upstairs," Volta muttered, grimacing.

"Can you go grab those, then?" he asked, heading toward the boy. He was chained to the wall by his wrists, his back facing the room at large. He looked conscious, but just barely. "What's your name, kid?" he asked once he was closer.

"Alex," he muttered, eyes still half-closed. "But I think you know me better as Cub."

Snake froze. "Sorry?" he asked, getting even closer. "I don't think I heard you right."

The boy grimaced—though whether it was in annoyance or pain Snake couldn't quite tell. "No, you g-got it. It's me, Cub. The one from B-breacon Beacons."

"Shit," Snake breathed, taking a good look at the boy's—Alex's, Cub's—face for the first time. It looked familiar, now that he had somewhere to place it. Most _definitely_ not Afghani. "How the hell did you end up here?"

Before Cub could answer, Bull and Eagle wandered back down, tossing a set of keys as they entered the room. Snake fumbled with them for a second before finding one that looked like a match and sticking it in the hole.

"The silver one," Cub muttered. "With the r-rubber thing on the outside."

Snake found it and shoved it into the lock, hearing it click satisfyingly. Cub's arm fell quickly to his side and he grimaced again. Snake hurried to do the other one. He had to be in terrible pain.

His other three teammates were watching with curious glances, Wolf especially. He was the only one who had heard Cub.

"We radioed while we were up there," Eagle told them, uncharacteristically serious. "There should be a humvee here in a few minutes."

"Good," Snake breathed. He may have been the one in the unit with the most medical experience, but he was far from qualified to deal with injuries of this magnitude. Just at first glance Cub was suffering from possible malnutrition and dehydration, severe lacerations on his back, maybe even septicaemia. He needed doctors, and quickly.

Cub had one arm on the wall, steadying himself. "Give me a gun," he told Wolf, his eyes closed. He had his other arm wrapped around his chest. Snake added possible broken ribs to his list.

Snake started unlatching his with the intention of giving it to him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Eagle shouted, striding across the room. "You can't give him a gun! He'll shoot him!"

Snake looked into Eagle's eyes. "That's the point," he said calmly. This man had to die—and if Cub wanted to be the one who did it, Snake wasn't planning on stopping him.

"You can't!" Eagle shouted. "What about the regulations..."

"Screw the r-regulations," Cub said. "This man killed my g-guardian—effectively my sister and m-mother wrapped into a neat little package—in f-front of me. _I watched her die_."

Eagle paled. "Why, though?" he asked, trying to make sense of it all. "Why would he do that?"

"H-he's a madman, for one," Cub told him. "And I t-think he just hates me."

"Don't forget to tell them that you are a spy," Volta said from the other side of the room. "You hold information that is of value to me." Snake shivered. The man had a slimy voice.

It took Eagle a second to put the pieces together. "Cub?!" he exclaimed, finally. "But, what...?!"

"Ask me l-later," Cub answered wearily. "Just g-give me the gun."

Snake did as he was told.

He watched as Cub struggled to lift the gun, until he was pointing it at Volta's head. His hand didn't shake. There was no fanfare, no gloating. A shot rang out. Volta fell into the wall, blood leaking out of a perfectly aimed shot in between his eyes. The blood flowed down his face, turning it into a grotesque mask. He died quickly.

And then Cub collapsed.


	3. Chapter 3

In case anyone's interested, I have posted the first two chapters of my first (real) work of original fiction up on fictionpress. There's a link on my profile, toward the bottom.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.**

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"Shit," was the first thing to come out of Wolf's mouth, and Snake couldn't help but agree. He rushed over to Cub, flipping him onto his stomach to avoid irritating the wounds on his back any further.

"When did you say that envoy was coming again, Eagle?" he heard himself ask as he surveyed the damage. It was bad; Cub was alive, but only just. His pulse was so slow that at first Snake couldn't feel it at all. His joints were all poking out of his skin, and Snake had to wonder just how long he'd been stuck in here with little food or water. By the looks of it, it had been quite a while.

"Shit," he murmured again, to himself, pulling the last of the bandages out of his pack. They'd used most of them the day before staunching the bleeding of an Afghani child who had been struck by a roadside bomb. He could hear Wolf, Eagle and Bull discussing their story behind him, and he listened with half an ear so there would be no discrepancies.

"He wrestled the gun away from Snakey here; his last burst of adrenaline, let's say, because he don't look too healthy," he could hear Bull reasoning in his slow way behind him. Snake didn't mind his role in the story. He'd heard too many tales of dying men managing to kill their captors before dying themselves, something his medical sergeant had told him was called excited delirium.

But Cub wasn't dying, he reminded himself as he methodically tried to curb the blood that was all but rushing out of Cub's back. He _couldn't _die. Like it or not, he had been a part of their unit for the better part of two years, now, and Snake didn't let people in his unit die. No matter what.

He barely heard it when the door burst open again, fixated as he was on Cub. But he did notice when medics showed up, stretcher and all, to get Cub out of there and into a decent hospital. They took one look at his back—which, though Snake had done his best, still looked mangled—and lifted him onto the stretcher face down, careful not to jostle him. Snake thought that their faces looked a little green. He didn't blame then. He felt plenty sick to his stomach.

He stood and wiped the blood on his hands onto his pants. He thought nonsensically that his mother would have killed him had she ever caught him doing that. But his mother was dead, and Snake had bigger things to worry about.

"You guys all okay?" he asked the rest of his team, still watching the paramedics. "Wolf, you had a knife in you earlier."

Wolf grunted. "Fine," he said, and Snake knew he would get nothing more out of him until they reached a hospital.

"Eagle? Bull?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," and "Peachy," were the responses he got. He rolled his eyes. Some things never changed.

"Ten pounds says Wolf has an injury that puts him in hospital," he began, finally turning to look at his team. "I'm not an idiot, guys. I saw you all upstairs. Don't think that claiming it never happened will make it all go away."

Eagle ignored him. "I'm not taking that bet," he said, grinning at Wolf. "Wolfie here has gotten _shot _before without admitting it."

"Same," Bull grunted, holstering his gun again. "Sorry Snake. No wagers for you."

"Oi!" Wolf shouted, half playfully, half serious. "I know when to admit I need help. Now just doesn't happen to be one of those times."

Snake snorted. "Whatever you say, Wolf. Now let's see if we can figure out what hospital they carted him to."

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His head throbbed unceasingly, almost to the rhythm of a half-remembered song playing in Alex's dreams. But, like the song, the tempo of the throbbing kept increasing, harder and faster until he could barely stand it. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again, the light burning into his brain.

That had been a hell of a torture session.

He had kept count—Volta's men didn't usually go past twenty lashes. Volta himself, however, seemed to find no issue in far surpassing that number. Before Alex had lost count, it had been at least 37.

He didn't remember the end of it—indeed; it had felt as if it would never end. He wondered if he'd told Volta anything. He didn't think he would have. He liked to think he was made of stronger stuff than that.

He thought about opening his eyes again now that the throbbing had lessened, but he felt mildly comfortable. Why ruin it with a reminder of his dank surroundings? The longer he pretended to be asleep, the longer he felt content and unburdened. That was something Jack had taught him—when you needed a break, you just had to make it yourself.

The throb in his head returned in full force, and suddenly he remembered.

Jack was dead.

K-Unit, somehow, miraculously, had found him.

He had murdered Volta in cold blood.

His eyes flung open of their own accord. He was in a sterile, white hospital room—they all looked the same no matter where you were—and hooked up to about four different machines. He bit back a groan. His mission had gone nowhere and all he had to show for it were scars. And Jack's corpse.

His chest ached, but it went beyond a physical pain. Jack was dead. Jack was gone. Jack wouldn't be there waiting for him when he returned to England.

Somehow, her death hurt a lot more than Ian's had.

He heard the door open, and he looked over without meaning to. A doctor entered the room carrying a clipboard and clicking his pen.

"Ah, Mr. Rider!" he said with a slight accent. "How good to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

Alex didn't answer—his '_you can't be serious_' face did the talking for him.

"Ah, yes," the doctor said awkwardly, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed. "You suffered quite a bit in captivity. Your conditions were a breeding ground for sepsis—blood poisoning. It's a miracle you survived as long as you did."

"Why don't I hurt?" Alex asked, swallowing past the gritty condition of his voice. He knew he should be hurting everywhere—his back, his legs, his arms, his stomach—but he felt no pain. Just suspended in an odd sort of place where he felt nothing.

The doctor forced a laugh. "You are on quite a lot of drugs right now, Mr. Rider. Not only were you suffering malnourishment and dehydration, your sepsis was so bad that we had to put you on dialysis _and_ artificial ventilation to support your lungs and kidneys. Before you stabilised, there was a while when we feared you might not make it."

"Is it better now?" he asked. He knew very little about artificial ventilation or dialysis, but he had tubes stuck up his nose. They probably had something to do with it.

"We were planning on discontinuing the artificial ventilation today—your lungs are stable enough to handle breathing on your own. Your kidneys, on the other hand, need the dialysis for a little while longer. You will probably be in here for a few more days at the least."

Alex nodded. "And my back?" he asked. "How is that going to heal?"

The doctor hesitated for the first time. Alex could almost see the cogs turning in his brain. A feeling of resentment grew in his chest. "Just tell me," he said impatiently. "_I'm_ the one that's going to have to live with it for the rest of my life."

"Very well," the doctor sighed, his voice heavy. Alex almost laughed. _He_ had reason to be upset? "You will have scars for the rest of your life," he said bluntly. "And it will likely pain you whenever you exert yourself." The phrase '_which should be fairly often, given who you work for_' went unsaid in the awkward silence that followed. "There are creams and medications we will give you, but this is a lifelong injury."

Alex's jaw clenched involuntarily. Volta had ruined his life in more ways than one. Now he would be like Ash, downing pills like there was no tomorrow and forever regretting where his life had taken him. He already had so very few people left in the world to care about, and it wasn't like his job brought him very many new friends.

The doctor stared at him as if waiting for a response, but Alex said nothing. He didn't even bother to glare at the man. Finally, the man sighed, looking weary. Alex felt another wave of bitterness crash through him.

"You have visitors," he said, standing up. "Should I let them in?"

For a moment Alex's mind was blank. Then he remembered—it was likely Mrs. Jones, or K-Unit. Mrs. Jones always seemed to find him in hospitals.

"No thanks," Alex said. He didn't particularly want to see either of them. All he wanted to do was go to sleep for a very, very long time.

"Very well," the doctor said, bowing out the door. He closed it softly behind him, and Alex turned his head to stare blankly at the ceiling. His eyes didn't want to close. Even open, images of blood flowering on Jack's chest flooded his vision. He could only imagine what would happen if he let his eyes close.

* * *

It wasn't until the sound of voices woke him that he realized he'd fallen asleep after all. He kept his eyes closed and his breathing even. It sounded like the doctor had let visitors in after all. Bastard.

"...not good. To be honest, I feel bad." Eagle's voice was easy to make out, though Alex didn't like his pitying tone. Pity helped no one.

"You _should _feel bad," Snake's voice said after a second. "Sepsis is serious. Not to mention his guardian..." But he didn't continue. Alex was thankful. His chest ached enough as it was.

"But why are we _here_?" he heard Wolf ask, as if he'd said it a million times before. Alex almost—almost—smiled. He sounded like a six-year-old.

Someone—likely Snake—sighed deeply, sounding weary. "Who else does he have?" he asked. "A guardian means he had no parents. And now his guardian is dead. Who else is going to visit him in a hospital in the middle of bloody Afghanistan?"

There was a lengthy pause. Alex wasn't sure whether to be grateful or upset. Grateful that they had stopped talking. Upset that he was completely right.

"'Sides," Snake said, as Alex felt the silence growing awkward. "He's part of our team. We visited _you_ in hospital, didn't we?"

Wolf grunted, which Alex took for a 'yes'. He wondered if he should open his eyes and speak to them. He felt as if he owed it to Snake, at least. The man had been nothing but helpful, and now he was being kind on top of it.

But he didn't exactly want to talk to anyone right now. He wanted to go back to sleep.

"This is going to be a very boring visit if he doesn't wake up soon," Bull observed. Wolf snorted.

"You're telling me," he said. Alex heard the rustling of fabric, which he took to be Wolf trying to make himself comfortable in the horrendous chairs the hospital provided. "Maybe I'll sleep myself..."

He heard a loud noise as someone fell to the ground. "Nope," Eagle said, sounding satisfied. "I didn't get to sleep in this morning; you don't get to sleep now."

Alex heard Wolf growl, sounding almost animalistic. He figured now was a good time to wake up. He let his eyelids flutter a couple of times and let out a small groan. Apparently it wasn't loud enough, because Wolf and Eagle continued their roughhousing. Bull guffawed, but Alex didn't hear anything from Snake. He assumed the man was looking at the scene as a parent would—with slight disapproval, but mostly amusement.

So he finally opened his eyes. Snake, of course, was the first to notice. So he kicked Wolf in the shins and gestured with his head, a small twitch toward Alex.

"Hey," he muttered, hating how his voice was _still_ gravelly. Shouldn't it have gone away already?

"Hey to you, too," Snake said, his eyes penetrating him. He almost unconsciously adjusted himself underneath Snake's gaze, before he caught himself. He wasn't nervous. He'd faced more frightening people than the SAS man before.

Eagle said a bright, "'Lo!" and Wolf grumbled a greeting. Bull grunted to show his acknowledgment.

There was an awkward pause. Alex wasn't quite sure what they expected of him.

"How are you, Cub?" Eagle asked. Alex's face darkened.

"Abso-fucking-lutely brilliant," he said, making eye contact with the man. Eagle actually flinched. "I'm stuck in hospital, I'm going to have scars on my back for the rest of my miserable life, and, oh yeah, Jack is _dead_!"

"Wrong question," he heard Wolf mutter after a long pause. Alex clenched his jaw and bit his tongue. Hell _yeah_ it was the wrong question! There was _nothing_ going right in his life!

However justified he felt, the expressions on their faces were still surreal to take it. None of them—even Bull, whom he had never personally met—seemed able to comprehend his situation. But then, he reasoned, he didn't exactly look like himself, and he looked even less like the normal teenager they all seemed to be expecting.

Afghanistan had turned into a hotspot for illicit behaviour recently. This went beyond extremist terror attacks and into megalomaniacs itching to take over the world, which was why Blunt and Jones had sent in Alex. He was particularly good at his job. His success rate was untouchable—100%. Fully grown agents couldn't even come close.

It was the fastest he'd ever been captured. He'd barely even stepped off of the plane, clad in the traditional Islamic Sunna dress, with his hair dyed black and his skin tanned dark, before he'd been apprehended by one of Volta's men. They had seemed to think that he knew the location of a detonator. He didn't. That had been his assignment—to find it.

Needless to say, he hadn't succeeded.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been kept in that hellhole of a basement room—a dungeon—but he knew it had been long enough to start to starve. He had noticed when his knees seemed knobbier, when the cuffs around his wrists seemed to loosen. And he had noticed the hunger.

For the first day or so it had only felt like he skipped a meal. It was just a hollow feeling in his stomach; no big deal. And then it started making weird rumbling sounds that seemed to echo around his cell. Then it felt as if a hole was being burrowed in his insides, growing bigger and bigger every day. That was when they fed him—just enough to keep the hole in his stomach from growing so large it would encompass him. They left him with the pain of starvation, the feeling of hunger that never went away. They gave him enough food to live, but not nearly enough to survive.

The thirst was worse, because they would tease him with it. Only trickles some days; gallons the next that he could never finish, but couldn't save. He went without it often. He had started to feel so disconnected that sometimes he didn't even notice when someone entered his cell. Not feeling anything was better than the pain of hunger and thirst.

He imagined he must look a fright. He imagined his face to be gaunt and bony under the false tan skin, his hair to be dark and matted. He imagined his eyes to be lifeless. He felt no life in them. He felt like a ghost. He imagined he must look like one too.

To be honest, he probably would've looked at himself the same way K-Unit was looking at him. He hadn't seen a mirror yet.

"So...erm," Eagle said, clearly uncomfortable with long periods of silence. "Uh...when are you going home?"

Snake flinched as soon as the question left his teammate's lips. Alex shrugged. "Home is where the heart is, isn't it? At the moment, my heart is right here with me."

Eagle seemed to have to process that thought. "But..." he said, "but... that just doesn't..."

Wolf kicked him. "Shut up Eagle," he said gruffly. "You have a way of asking the worst possible questions."

"What'd I do?!" Eagle yelped, rubbing his shin. "'S not _my_ fault I'm tactless."

"Cue 'your mum' joke," Snake muttered, rolling his eyes." Alex didn't think Wolf heard him, because surely he would not have continued with, "No, that would be your mum's fault," he said. "Where'd she raise you, a pigsty?"

Alex felt disconnected from the whole scene as they began to wrestle, knocking things from tables. He watched them for a moment before he turned his head back to the ceiling, not closing his eyes.

None of the other four noticed, too engrossed in the impromptu wrestling match that had by now encompassed most of Alex's room.

He didn't make eye contact when they stopped and he responded to none of their questions. Faces awkward and mildly concerned, they eventually gave up and filed out of his room much more subdued than they had been moments before.

Alex didn't care. He turned his head back to the ceiling and stared.


End file.
